Why do melons always have big weddings?

We've been buying quite a lot of melon for our small, three-person household because they're so perfectly in season, so wonderfully refreshing, and they just smell so damn good that it's worth the extra weight on the mile walk home from the farmers' market. And, to make room for the new melons, we have to eat up the old ones, resulting in this cantaloupe sorbet from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. Some advice:

1. If your melon happens to be less-than-perfectly ripe and flavorful, add another lime. Or, if you like lime, add another lime. For instance, when Lebovitz wrote "1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lime, plus more to taste." I read it as "one lime, plus another one." It might make the sorbet's texture a little coarser, but it will completely overwhelm the cantaloupe's inadequacies.

2. If you need to test the white wine in the back of the fridge to make sure it hasn't turned into vinegar, don't use the mini plastic teddybear cup you found in the back of the drawer because a) the four-year-old watching Toy Story with your dad will want some and b) it's probably covered in 20-year-old lead paint from China.

3. When your mum mentions that her second-hand mixer might run a little different because your uncle tinkered with the motor a bit before giving it to her, that means that he made it go twice as fast and it doesn't have a low setting and it may not be ideal for churning sorbet and you should just put it away on top of the fridge and replace it with the one you got from your grandma, which doesn't know about warp speed yet.

4. Don't leave your lens cap out on the counter.

5. Don't worry too much about the four-year-old angling for that plastic cup of white wine; she's much more interested in raspberries.

Cantaloupe Sorbet [with a lot of lime]

Adapted from David Lebovitz's "The Perfect Scoop"

Chop up the meat of 

One 2-pound ripe cantaloupe

Purée in a blender with

1/2 cup sugar

pinch of salt

the juice of one or two small limes, or if you have a really good melon, maybe just a teaspoon.

Add

2 tablespoons white wine or Champagne

Chill thoroughly, then freeze in an ice cream maker that your uncle hasn't tampered with.  

(Because they can't elope.)

Because we don't have enough ice cream in the freezer already.

Last weekend I drove down to Santa Barbara to visit my grandmother, and to pick up a slightly used, underutilized kitchen unit for my own use.

When we returned, plus one standing mixer and one grandmother, waiting for me in my parents' freezer was an additional gift.

Then, in our meanderings, my grandmother found some apricots at the local corner grocery that were nearly exploding with over-ripeness.

Luckily, as of last week, I happened to have David Lebovitz's book The Perfect Scoop - which includes a very simple apricot sorbet recipe.

And so, all these lovely gifts from my family came together in the form of an intense scoop of sweet, cold apricot.

As the saying goes, the best gifts are the ones that keep on giving.

It was almost like it was my birthday or something.

Peach Sorbet

Remember all those peaches we peeled for all those alcoholic drinks? We saved some. Because in the summer heat, a four ingredient recipe for peach sorbet is not something you should pass up. This recipe, courtesy (as always) of David Lebovitz, is possibly the easiest, most simplistic, and most flexible use of an ice cream maker yet. And quite likely the most delicious. Although that credit should probably go to the peaches.

Chop up the peeled peaches.

 Cook them in a bit of water until soft.

 Add some sugar.

Blend.

Add some lemon juice and chill.

Freeze in the ice cream maker.

The sorbet that comes out of the ice cream maker, unlike the other frozen things I've made, was ready to eat immediately - it has a very stiff texture. We put it in the freezer anyway, and had it later that night.

Here's where my recipe deviates a little from the original. Or not so much of a deviation as another use for this lovely sorbet. Once it was done churning, we scooped out a little extra sorbet into two glasses and poured some chilled, peachified white wine over it, making a very refreshing, thick, peachy drink.

It's like a light, wine-based smoothie!

I think this sorbet might be the most flavorful thing to come out of all my summer ice cream maker experiments so far. And clearly peaches have completely hijacked my summer. Which, well, who could complain?

Sour Cherry Sorbet

 So after completely overwhelming myself and my household with sour cherry pie, when my housemate's CSA left us with another quart of sour cherries, I decided to try something different. Something that, preferably, didn't involve an oven.

Like this sour cherry sorbet recipe from Cafe Fernando.











It's very simple (after you've pitted the cherries): a simple syrup, a little lemon, and sour cherry juice.

Skim off the solids, make sure everything's cold, and dump it in the ice cream maker. And then freeze it. The only problem was that we ate it all so fast. And it was evening, so you can't see the marvelous color of the final product. Maybe I'll make another batch and try to eat it during the daylight.